Sicilian Rice Ball Casserole

Sicilian Rice Ball Casserole takes one of my favorite appetizers (arancini) and turns it into a weeknight meal. Freezes well, great for potlucks and family friendly!

Sicilian Rice Ball Casserole

I can’t take full credit for this, this is pure genius from my friend Julia of Julia’s Healthy Italian. I tweaked her recipe to lighten it up a bit, but she takes full credit for the creativity. Servings are large and very satisfying, you could serve a simple green salad on the side if you want more greens.

The filling is ground turkey with a little sausage that adds lots of flavor, plus peas and sauce. If you don’t like peas, swap it with another vegetable. I’m thinking of trying a broccoli and sausage version next.

Julia usually makes double and freezes the second casserole to use later. I halved her original, but it makes sense to make two for the same amount of work it takes to make one. I serve mine with a little extra sauce on the side and have also made this with brown rice and it works great.

To make this quicker you can make the rice ahead of time as well as the sauce. I used my filetto di pomodoro recipe, but you can use your favorite sauce. I recommend either using the 93% lean turkey, I found the 99% lean turkey was too dry and the points remain the same.

Made this as a luncheon appetizer along with other Antipasto.. The family loved it! I did not use the turkey but doubled up on the sausage. It was filling and plenty left over for the next day – which they all appreciated and took home. Even the grand children enjoyed it.

Made this today and followed the recipe but half the rice didn’t cover the bottom of a 9×15 pan. had to use all the rice to cover the bottom of the pan and it still wasn’t enough. Not sure what went wrong. Anyone else have this problem???

I made this last night and it was unbelievable delicious! I don’t care for peas so I subbed with 3 large mushrooms and a half bag of fresh spinach, chopped, instead. It was also easy to make ahead of time and pop in the oven. I portioned out the leftovers to freeze.

Used riced cauliflower, ground chicken breast and chicken sausage. Got it down to 4sp. If I swap sauce can get it to 3! My son didn’t realize it was cauliflower. Used fresh riced. Now that’s what I call a happy meal!

It states in the blog post above “The filling is ground turkey with a little sausage that adds lots of flavor, plus peas and sauce. If you don’t like peas, swap it with another vegetable. I’m thinking of trying a broccoli and sausage version next.”

Tried this today. Used Brown rice and also topped meat layer wirh dollops of ricotta and chopped hard boiled eggs the way my sicilian friend makes her arancini Delicious and healthy Thank you. All I love in a healthier version.

My grandmother came to the US from Sicily, and she made us rice balls using her family recipe. They are labor intensive and time consuming to make, but such a delicious treat! Her recipe is a little different from yours, but I used your outline to make her rice balls into a casserole. Fantastic! I’m so excited. It’s so much easier and faster, so I’ll definitely be making this often. It’s pure comfort food to me. And an extra bonus is that you use way fewer eggs and far less butter, without sacrificing the taste I expect, so it’s a lot healthier too!

Just FYI in case you are interested, the major differences in your recipe do my grandmother’s are that she did not put tomato sauce in the rice (just Romano cheese, lots of egg yolks and tons of butter!), and to season her meat she used tomato paste, Romano cheese, ground cloves, nutmeg, white wine, and mozzarella. Oh, and no peas, although I know they are commonly used in Italy. From what I understand, the recipes vary widely from region to region.

This was for sure a family KO and will become a part of the roataion of meals I can cook tht everyone enjoys. Was very yummy. I only substituted onion powder for the onions because I was out of onions. I also added dried basil. Yumo

This was amazing! Gina you have the most creative recipes. I ended up using half frozen cauliflower rice because I did not have enough white rice in the house. But it was great, you couldn’t taste the cauliflower at all. This was a huge hit!

This looks amazing. Gina! I’m thinking of substituting chicken sausage for the pork. I’ve been making my pizzas with it and, even though I love Italian pork sausage the chicken is pretty good. And it would probably make it even healthier. Right? I love your recipes and your website!

Hey Gina, I’ve been a loyal follower of your site since 2009 – long time listener first time caller – and I just had to say, this dish hit the spot for me this weekend. It was such a rough week, and I was really in need of a hug – and this dish delivered and then some. Thank you for all the hard work you do. I’ve never followed a site where the recipes are just so consistently delicious and reliable!

Welcome!

Hi, I’m Gina Homolka, a busy mom of two girls, author and recipe developer here at Skinnytaste.com. My food philosophy is to eat seasonal, whole foods and maintain good portion control (everything in moderation!).